Winamac failed to accept the Captain’s invitation to breakfast, but instead sent five warriors who secreted themselves behind a small building and shot two members of the garrison. From then on the siege became active. That night the Indians made a general attack, but were driven off by the four howitzers of the fort. Almost continuous firing was kept up day and night until September 10; several times the buildings were set on fire by flaming arrows, but the vigilance of the garrison prevented a conflagration.
During this time, Captain Rhea continued “drunk as a fool, and perfectly incapable of exercising rationality on any subject whatsoever, but was constantly abusing and illtreating everyone that came in his presence.”[18] The disorder and confusion he created among the men was one of the greatest dangers of the siege. At one time Lieutenants Curtis and Ostrander considered placing him under arrest in order to silence his clamor. The captain would frequently talk of surrendering if the Indian attacks grew stronger and particularly if they or the British would bring up the cannon they had captured at Chicago. When Captain Rhea was told by Lt. Ostrander that the largest piece at Chicago was a three-pounder and that the first person in the garrison who should offer to surrender at the approach of no heavier piece than a three-pounder should instantly be shot, he remained silent on the subject.
Meanwhile, instead of waiting at Piqua for the arrival of General James Winchester, who had been assigned to the command of the northwestern army, Harrison issued the following call:
Mounted Volunteers! I requested you, in my late address to rendezvous at Dayton on the 15th instant. I have now a more pressing call for your services! The British and Indians have invaded our country and are now besieging (perhaps have taken) Fort Wayne. Every friend to his country, who is able to do so, will join me as soon as possible, well mounted, with a good rifle and twenty or thirty days provisions.[19]
Although Harrison was eager to press forward, the army was detained at Piqua for lack of flints and did not move until September 6. Two days later it reached Girty’s Town, now St. Mary’s, Ohio. By that time the army numbered 2,200 men, and the scouts sent out by the Indians returned to their camp with the report that “Kentuck is coming as numerous as the trees.”[20]